NORWAY - The Serpent within, Should it be called Christian Terror?

The rather tranquil country of 4.9 million inhabitants was shaken by a huge bomb blast in Oslo followed by random killings at a youth rally on an island. This horrific and mindless act of a terrorist has left nearly one hundred dead and many more injured.

At the outset, media and politicians pointed a finger at Islamic terrorism. But soon enough it turned out that the terrorist was none other than a blonde haired blue eyed Norwegian citizen. The suspect, Anders Behring Breivik is an extreme right wing Muslim hating, immigrant hating Christian fundamentalist.

In the last few years, this land of prosperity and peace has turned from a liberal to an extreme right majority. The media and politicians openly spew out hatred against Islam and immigrants. Extreme right wingers are constantly interviewed on television and their pathetic and hateful views given airing on a regular basis.

Apparently Anders Behring Breivik is one such person, who openly demonstrated hate against Muslims and immigrants. Ultimately, hate got the better of him and in an act terror, he snuffed out the lives of one hundred innocent human beings and for no reason at all. The serpent grew within. History has shown that when extremists are allowed a free reign and moderate and sensible people do not raise voice to check them, the consequences are often deadly. Hitler was a product of such hatred. The Muslim countries are also guilty of not stopping extremists in their midst, who turned from extremists to gun toting terrorists. Today, many countries including Muslim countries are suffering the consequences.

Since Mr. Anders Behring Breivik is an extremist Christian fundamentalist, should this act of terror now be called Christian Terror? Ideally, it would be best not to link name of any religion with terror as terror has no religion. It should be denounced most vociferously whenever and wherever it occurs. Hopefully, the West will have a better understanding of it after this heinous act.

The Scourge of Suicide Bombing

It is insane that young people give their lives through suicide bombings because some extremists whip up their emotions to a frenzy. Suicide bombing is a relatively recent phenomena.

In recent history, the first suicide bombing that I can recall was in 1991 when the handsome ex-Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi had his life snuffed out by a young Sri Lankan woman who blew herself up and him with her. Gandhi at the time was only 47 years old and apparently had a long political life ahead of him.

This craze then caught on with the young Palestinians and of late with not so young ones when a 64 year old grandmother blew herself up. Since then, this craze has spread to Iraq killing thousands of people and then to Afghanistan and now more recently to Pakistan.

Islam & the Koran explicitly forbid suicide in so much as it says that anyone committing suicide or taking the life of innocent people is destined to hell. The question for the Muslim world then is why are so many Muslims involved in suicide bombings? Mostly Muslims are killing Muslims. It is time for the Islamic scholars to come out openly and vocally against suicide bombings so that young impressionable men and women who are being used by the extremists are discouraged from these horrendous acts.

Unfortunately, the world seems to link terrorism with Islam. But terrorists have no religion. A terrorist is a terrorist regardless of his religion. It is time that terrorists are separated from Islam and the Muslim scholars of Al-Azhar (Egypt) and other countries stand up and have their voice heard to put an end to this scourge.

Blame Islam

Is the religion Islam to blame for extremist/terrorist activity?

Since 9/11 the world has become topsy turvy and the western world cannot understand the anger and hatred shown towards it by Al-Qaeda and similar other extremist organizations. This has resulted in a backlash from the West towards the Muslim world. In times of phenominal crisis such as these a reaction of this nature is not unusual. Remember the Japenese being imprisoned in California during the World War?

Contrary to popular belief and media speculation a vast majority of 1.6 billion muslims in the world (including five million in the U.S.) are moderate human beings busy worrying about making a decent living, sending their kids to school and putting food on the table. They are themselves sick and tired of the extremists.

For nearly 100 years Catholic Irish Republican Army (IRA) was involved in terror tactics. But Catholic Christians around the world were not held to account for their activities and quite rightly so. To do otherwise would have been an injustice and a travesty. Similarly a vast majority of Muslims do not wish to be painted with the same brush as the terrorists. A large number of Muslim countries feel that the U.S. and the West rather than going it alone, should join hands with them to marginalize the extremists.